Gun in the Sand
by 2028
Summary: AU: Rick and Drew were deployed at the same station overseas but Rick didn't know that until he finds Drew's dog tags.
1. Chapter 1

Drew glanced around him. He and his team were stationed at the top of a hill, waiting for an end to this current standoff; Drew knew the men they were facing would not give up their position. Earlier they had been trying to rescue a group of aid workers from an abandoned building and their route in had been spotted by the rebels controlling the area. Drew was currently staring down the scope of a gun and waiting for someone to decide how they were going to pull out of this.

An hour passed. Both sides were impressed at the other's determination and Drew vaguely wondered how long this standoff would continue. The sun had started to dip when Drew heard bullets from both sides. His side fired and the other side returned; before Drew could respond he felt one of his fellow soldiers punch him on the shoulder to get his attention and nodded at a person flanking the US vehicle.

Drew pulled out from his position and nodded, aiming to follow but he felt a spray of warm blood against his face and a sharp burn in his chest. Drew fell back and hit the ground, pain radiating through his body, starting at his shoulder and spreading fire down the rest of his body.

The sound of the firefight faded in the background and Drew reached out to his right side and touched the ground next to him, coming up with a hand soaked in blood. Aside his skin, it felt strange; Drew stared at it until his head dropped back against the ground. His vision blurred black at the edges and he wondered vaguely why it no longer felt it like burning in his veins.

He closed his eyes.

Captain Lincoln was leading a patrol of men past base camp when a vertical object stuck in the sand caught his eye. At the last second, he made the connection; it was a gun covered in a jacket and dog tags. Sorrow bit into him but on an impersonal level, one at which he could feel sadness and sympathy but not overwhelming grief. So he turned his head back and came walking, needing to brief people before their patrol started. But through the briefing and the questions that followed, the image of the gun in the ground bothered him. Something about it seemed important and dread inched into the back of his mind. So after his briefing and after his team had taken to the field for the night watch, Captain Lincoln walked back to the impromptu tombstone and read the name on the dag tags.

PCF Andres had not noticed the gun in the ground until his captain looked at it and unsure how to react, he followed Captain's Lincoln lead and kept walking. However, a fade expression passed over his commander's face, one that Andres wasn't certain he saw but it stuck in his mind.

Through the briefing Captain Lincoln behaviored completely normally but that flash of emotion across his face earlier wouldn't left Andres alone. Having an hour before his rotation on guard duty, he peered out the door after Captain Lincoln. Andres saw him head back towards the memoir, and he followed, watching him lean down to read the dog tags.

The stamped metal was covered in grains of sand and Rick thumbed them away, squinting to the small words in the light of the falling sun. When his eyes focused, shock first slammed into his chest, followed by stake of pain that felt like it wound into his muscles and he took a stifled breath through it.

The urge to cry or scream bit in his eyes and his throat, but years of training didn't let him show his reaction. In the midst of the grief and shock, a tiny part of him remembered no one knew they were together; they hid themselves away from the world to keep their jobs and avoid the almost persecution like aim of their society to ridicule them.

Andres saw Captain Lincoln flinch and he felt his heart sink as he realized his commander knew this fallen soldier and given the tightness in his shoulders and the careful way he held himself to hide the reaction, personally. Andres hadn't seen anyone die on the battlefield, it was the beginning of his first tour, but he had witnessed grief and recognized the way of a man controlled his every tiny movement when he can't control the swirling emotions. In the long rays of the sun, Andres saw a man grieving someone he sincerely cared about but desperately trying to hide that grief.

Rick knelt in front of the gun in the sand for an immeasurable amount of time, but eventually he realized he needed out of the view of other people for a while. He knew he couldn't hide the emotions in his eyes so he needed not to let people see them. The thought of never seeing Drew again torn through him and even the thought of talking about from this spot weakened his knees. It took another second to decide but finally Rick reached a slightly shaking hand forward to touch the dog tags he had flipped over without hesitation last time. He stared at them, reading Drew's name over and over, still seeing it when he closed his eyes to force the emotional storm down for another second, and he purposely avoided the name when he fingered the clasp of the chain, maneuvering until the tag with Drew's name slid into his hand. He left the official one with Drew's number and and rank but the personal one with only name and nickname was his. It felt cold on his palm and Rick closed his fist around it, finally finding the strength to stand and walk away.

Eventually Captain Lincoln walked away and Andres could read the deliberateness of each step, a physical control in the place of emotional restraint. Feeling guilty for intruding, but sincerely concerned for immense grief rolling off his commander, Andres followed still.

Rick walked down his tent and at last become aware of the person following him almost silently. He had enough training in ignoring his emotions and focusing on the mission that he could run through the names of the men he had send on the first watch of the patrol and the remaining ones who were bold enough to follow him. He landed on one name, Jamie Andres, who was observational enough to see him return to the gun in the sand and confidence enough not to deferred by what was obviously a personal moment. Something about the silent steadiness of the feeling of a man at his back, watching it for him, let Rick forgive Andres and walk without trying to throw his tail.

Andres pauses for a second, a dozen from the foot of the ramp, when Captain Lincoln entered the tent all the commanders shared, but glancing around he realized this time might be the only time he was allowed in there. It was the nightly meeting, Captain Lincoln the only one not there because his men were up for the patrol rotation. He stepped quietly up to the door, but met his commander's eyes through the mesh. He froze with his hand, not for fear of being remanded but at the depth of sorrow in the other man' eyes. It took his breath away to see so much pain in eyes he had only see smiling or focused or angry. Andres broke eye contact first, unallow to witness the weight without waves of hurt in sympathy. Pain didn't have a physical representation or a color, but in that moment, Andres could swore it was a swirling black mass that invaded and rushed through, leaving an aching mess in it place. Andres took a deep breath and prepared himself to look up, meeting Captain's Lincoln only long enough to see the nod of permission and pull the door open.

Rick wasn't sure why he let Andres in after he followed him. Letting him follow was one thing but inviting him into the one remotely private place on base was not what Rick had planned. But when he saw Andres' eyes, the gently empathy there, the sincere concern, Rick realized he wanted someone to go through the motions of saying meaningless comforting things and useless reassurances. He and Drew, they had been a couple in the same right as anyone else; the lost of one half of the pair deserved the same respect any husband or wife might receive for the lost of their spouse. So he nodded minutely and turned away from the door as it cleaked open.

Andres dropped his vision briefly as he pulled the door open only far enough to slip in. Captain Lincoln had started toward the back of the room, his back to the door. Andres walked down the center of the room, careful to avoid touching anything and navigating in the low light. About two-thirds of the way down, Captain Lincoln stopped and almost collapsed on a bunk, all the formalities of military culture lost in the moment. Andres, uncomfortable but worried, followed down the row and sat very lightly on the bunk across from his commander, well aware of the vast number of protocols he was breaching. Captain Lincoln had raised his head, letting Andres see his eyes and all they held.

The quiet footsteps provided only a small measure of comfortable but comfortable nonetheless.

Again the depth shocked Andres, but this time Andes steeled himself against the urge to flinch away and observed the blackness of grief. Something, perhaps the intensity, perhaps the all encompassing nature, perhaps some other facet of that blinding pain, made Andres he was looking into the eyes of a man who had lost, not a friend or a brother, but the love of his life. And that realization set loose a new wave of sympathy Andres knew all too much well.

Rick saw the moment Andres figured it out and somehow it didn't trigger the wave of panic that moment usually did. His relationship with Drew felt so huge and important and incredible, at times Rick wondered how the whole world didn't know about it. The burden of being the only one who knew about the love they had shared pressed into his shoulders and only years of conditioning kept him from breaking down and crying or telling Andrew all about Drew. The thought that it would fade without Drew around scared Rick like nothing in battle ever had and suddenly he feared forgetting anything about his boyfriend because there would be no one to remember it.

Captain Lincoln hissed through his teeth and quickly drown any other sounds of grief with a hard grinding of his teeth. Andres didn't touch him, didn't move, didn't say anything, but inside winced at the tornado of emotion in that one action. Not knowing how to comfort a man on the edge of flying apart, Andres sat silently, watching with a gentle gaze the havoc the lost of this fellow soldier was wrecking on his commander; and for whatever reason, his commander's didn't tense when Andres saw his grief and instead seemed to relax ever so slightly.

Rick had growth up with his mother, primarily, his father being deployed a lot and busy when he wasn't. So Rick had growth up under the almost overwhelming attention and care of one of the most intelligent and compassion women on the planet. One who had taught him to love deeply and live happily and laugh merrily. Under that sincere optimism had been an empathy which Rick had meet only two other times; one that see tears and comfort without inducing shame and one that could read pain and sooth it with a light hand and a loving word. This type of upbringing had instilled in Rick the value of emotions and the respect they deserved, whether in him or in other people. The army had hardened his outside and the ridicule he knew he would face if they relationship was ever found made him wary to trust, but deep inside Rick realized the torment he felt at losing Drew deserved an acknowledgement and the breathtaking ache of not having the love of his life deserved empathy. So he sat on his bunk in the middle of desert, in a dark tent, clasping a sheet of metal that bore his boyfriend's name, letting himself feel the emotions and letting someone else sit there in solidation.

Andres was not sure how long they sat there, never talking, never touching, silent except for the occasional hiss of grief from his commander. After a while Andres wondered if he should say something, however little comfort it would bring it, but right now he knew that his captain wanted someone else to know this love he had shared with a man who just been killed. So Andres sat and let his mindset adjust to the idea of his captain, the man who made they run hills in the rain, the man who screamed at them for screwing up and congratulated them for their victories, the man who taught him to shoot a sniper rifle, sharing his life with another. And surprisingly, Andres could picture it without much trouble. Under the hardened outside and the tough image, Andres could see a man who loved and cared and fought for others; that image fit perfectly with the idea of Captain Lincoln being half of a heartfelt love.

Finally Rick pulled himself out of his head long enough to notice it was ten minutes until their shift on patrol. The new grief settled in his chest, demanding tears and sobs, but the desert and this hell didn't stop when people died and even in this devastation Rick had a job to do and men to protect. So that pain settled, weight that would never fade, with a sharpness that would remind Rick was unexpressed. And he stood up, prompting Andres to rise as well, looking his soldier in the eyes, where Rick hoped the other man could read the gratitude, and from the nod, Andres could.

Captain Lincoln stood and Andres saw a calmness take residence in his eyes, a strength not hiding the pain, but living with it for the moment, and a sincerity acknowledging its depth without touching it. Andres realized they had patrol and he turned to invite Captain Lincoln to step in front of him, but his commander stayed still and let Andres led, taking them down the hallway to the door. At the door, Andres paused for a half second, wondering if the moment ended a closing remark and deciding there was nothing to say. Some grief knew no words and often emotions were lived out through the people who experienced them, not the words they spoke about those feelings. So PCF Andres released the breath he taken and pushed the door open, stepping into the dark night.

Rick paused behind Andres for a second and felt his mind go blank. Their tour had four more months; how he would keep it together for that long, Rick wasn't sure. The memories of Drew swirling through his head were not a comfort yet; they felt like repeatedly being punched in the gut, and he could still feel the groves the extra dog tag had left in his hand. It seemed strange he was not marked in any other way, given how changed he felt on the inside. It seemed strange, that emotional pain didn't left marks because it hurt more than any of Rick's other injuries. Leaving Drew unmourned for the moment left a sick guilty feeling in his stomach, but Rick shoved the door open and stepped into the dark. It almost crushed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Sad. Very sad. Main character death.

The title is a line from Andrew Mcmahon's "Cecilia and the Satellite".

* * *

Nerves communicate a great many things, they move muscles, they store memory, they control reflexes, they save lives, they make lives, so when they burn away, they take life with them.

"Four alarm fire. Combined police and fire, it burned hot and we have casualties."

The night hadn't been all together calm but it hadn't been wild either. Despite these incoming though, it stayed relatively quiet, two major injuries and a bunch of patch ups. Almost the best they could hope for from a fire. Almost.

Before Topher read a chart or made an order, he noticed burned flesh and his stomach rolled. Burn victims, even after years, he can't get used to get treating little kids or burn victims. Damn burn victims.

"Hey Topher."

Damn burn victims he knew.

"Hey."

And their relatively calm night turned into hell.

* * *

"What were you doing running into burning buildings?"

"The building fell on me; I was standing outside."

Topher didn't answer, and kept moving bandages and watching Rick's face not react to that. He kept hitting bone. Bone. Bone. Bone. Burns and bones— doctor's worst nightmare, one that every single one of them hoped never crossed their table, because burns and bones, the only treatment: painkillers; no one had figured out how to come back from that. So burns and bones, no one really recovered.

* * *

Ending his investigation and grabbing the chart, Topher told Rick to wait a moment and he stepped out. Heart beating through ribs, those same ribs almost cracking under the pressure of examining them. That horrible white bone and stark black flesh. Angry red burns covering his whole back and both his shoulders, his neck, sparing his face.

Staring at the OR board, Topher briefly considered telling Drew first, but decided against it. His patient, his responsibility and he was not going to make his good friend tell his husband he's dying.

Topher stalled, he will admit it and Rick could tell, but he wrapped the skin back in place, set both Rick's hands on the bed and plopped down in front of him, who had already figured it out.

People's eyes grew when they got hurt or maybe the vulnerability in them did, but every last time Topher had this conversation, all he could remember was their eyes, staring at him, huge and scared or huge and brave or huge and slick with tears, but huge every time.

Topher sat there and outlined all the extreme measures they could take. Rick nodded. Topher continued to say that he would be medically fragile his whole life, he'd lose his other leg, he wouldn't be a cop anymore, he probably wouldn't be anything anymore. Again with these huge eyes. Then Topher said, normally in these situations they don't pull all the stops and they keep people comfortable. Comfortable. As if it was anything than heart breaking. Rick nodded. They stared at each other and Topher asked if he had any questions. Rick laid still.

"Could I talk to Drew for a second?"

Topher nodded, planning on grabbing Drew as soon as this conversation wrapped up.

"Want someone to stay here?"

"I just need to talk to Drew." A waver captured his voice on the last word and Topher remembered the man who sat in the hospital the last time, the brave face he wore in front of his men, the softening of that around Drew, the eventual lack of it around most of the night shift. A stoic soldier, a worried husband, a confidence friend. Holding that proud, strong, destroyed gaze another second, Topher regretted it leaving, regretted the person behind it being gone and didn't bother to suppress the helplessness that ripped across his chest. He nodded, didn't wipe away the tears that had started to fall down his face and backed out.

Outside he yanked the curtain, asked Krista to replace Drew in surgery and found a private room. Absolute, literal hell, their night had become.

* * *

Drew left the surgery at Krista's urging and walked down to ER, confused and not worried yet.

Topher met Drew at the nurse's station and ushered him into the break room. Closing the door, Topher sat Drew down, put the chart in between them and started talking.

"That fire, one of the cops is Rick. Drew, I… I'm really sorry but he's covered in burns, cops don't wear fire gear…"

Family members, especially close ones, especially ones who could read between the lines, their eyes magnified too.

"Toph, just tell me."

Topher paused, stared, met the challenge in Drew's huge eyes.

"His chest is burned down to his ribs. Something fell on him so his hip joint is in a bunch of pieces, second degree mostly down his back and his arms."

"Stop." Drew murmured, seeing the injuries in his heads and not needing more of them to make his conclusion. If the words didn't paint the picture clearly enough, Topher's expression did; he wouldn't look like that if there was anything to be done.

Sitting there for another second, Topher watched that expressive face crumble, try to rebuild itself and finally Drew put his hands over his face and forced the facade back into place.

"He's gonna die."

"Yes."

"Tonight, right now."

Topher hesitated. "Yes."

Even the toughest of people can't contain everything, there's always something, and in Drew that something has always been his voice and his eyes.

"Damn it, Toph." And Drew pulled again from him when he started to touch him, stood up, again forced himself to pull it back together.

"Where'd you put him?"

* * *

"Hey."

Rick pried his eyes open and there was relief there, the type of relief Drew saw in people's eyes when the mask could come down, when they felt safe, and didn't need to hide their pain anymore. And Drew see the relief. And he could see the pain.

"Topher said you were looking for me." Drew tried and Rick grinned. That almost broke his resolve right off the bat because seriously he smiled. Someone so strong, it didn't make sense regular, human things could break them.

"Why else would I be here?" Rick asked, trying the tone for himself.

Pulling up a chair and chucking the chart, Drew sat.

"Topher told me." He got a nod in confirmation.

"And he said he told you?" A pause, a deep breath and a nod.

"What do you think I should do?" It still stuck Drew how much Rick trusted him, would follow him to the ends of the earth.

"Not my decision. You have to decide." Drew said softly, sitting and meeting Rick's eyes.

"I know." Rick swallowed. "Second opinion."

Drew had read the chart in the elevator, through the tears running down his face.

"Burns are…" Drew was conscious of Rick watching his every move. "Devastating." he finished, barely. "I… agree with Topher…. You would not like the results."

Rick nodded, his face pinching, tears gathering in his eyes, that relief breaking, the pain spreading, the expression collapsing. Drew leaned forward and Rick buried his face in Drew's arms and shook. Drew winced, both because shaking look like it hurt Rick and because knives sliced ribbons in his heart.

After long seconds of muffled breaths, Drew could make out words. One word actually. His name. Shreds. His heart, not ribbons, shreds.

"Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew, Drew." Over and over, whispered in a tiny, fast voice, asking what, he didn't know.

"Yea, I'm right here. What is it?" he whispered back, answering the tiny voice, matching the magnitude.

"I'm sorry." the tiny voice faded under the weight of the emotion and stalled out. Drew curled his head around Rick's and they rested on his arms.

"I can't die." Rick wavered, almost fell on that word. One word, immeasurable strength required to say it.

Drew felt tears run down his face, silently, dripping on his arms.

"You…. you're still here. What are you going to do? I can't die.." Sobs could obscure words, but tearful will power, bullet proof concern, pain soaked determination, they could carry words.

Drew desperately wanted to wrap his arms around Rick and run from the hospital, run from the city, run from the world. His ears didn't hear the words, his body felt them as pain.

Time passed but Drew's body didn't uncoil. The words sat in his mouth, their time there making them more important to say, they needed out.

"Rick" Drew eventually ground out. "This is not your fault."

Their skulls touched and Rick forced them together, the rest of his body useless in expressing himself, his voice held captive, so they fit their heads together until they couldn't be closer and the pressure hurt. Drew reached out, but can't see for the tears, can't see for Rick's unburned face hiding his burned body so he didn't grab on and the movement renewed the shredding. Debris, not shreds, not ribbons, debris.

"I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you here." Dust, not debris, not shreds, not ribbons, dust.

"There were things I promised and now I can't…" Drew can't take it anymore and turned until the bend of his nose met Rick's and he hovered over the white bandage in place of a hand. Fingertips ghosted the palm of his hand, and his hand shook not clamping down on them.

"I'm not mad at you. You did a good thing. I'm not…" Drew faded out, curling his arm around Rick and sobbing.

"I'm sorry." For leaving, not being able to help, for being hurt, for being in pain, for needing you, for loving you, I'm sorry. I can't stay, I can't leave, but I can despise it and I can watch you go. If you steal a piece of me when you leave, keep it, it's yours.

"Does it hurt?" Their faces did, his head did but Drew wanted to know the physical.

"It…. weird, disconnected." Rick mumbled. "But not painful." Empty, it felt empty, dying felt empty and that hurt but the only drug for that is the end and he wasn't ready yet.

"Keep talking." Rick requested, shaking, wanting some balm over his aching wounds and listening to Drew did it.

Drew didn't talk, he choked. There were things he wouldn't do for anyone, nothing in the world could convince him, but one person held permission to ask though things of him. He gave it because his husband never asked, not once, asked him to do things he couldn't physically do. Now he asked for something Drew thought he couldn't make himself give. But he could.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to talk about anything, I want to listen to your voice."

He could. He could. He could. He could. One thing.

"Remember when we…" the first sentence took a minute to force out, the second thirty seconds, the third, shorter until Drew caught up to normal speed.

Emotions lived in the people who felt them, not the words spoken about them later. But the people who lived them, they could feel them again with a swipe of a memory, with the strength of remembrance. So Drew recreated their life, in happiness, in sadness, in good times, in bad times, in sickness and in health, in fights, in laughter, in public, in private, their life. Until death do them apart.

"Drew" the tiny voice broke the stream of memories, splashed pain down in the middle of the clear river he had painted. "I can't breathe."

Drew smoothed his hand down the side of Rick's face. "It's okay. You're okay. I got you. You'll be fine." The stained river, the muddy river, the black river, Drew could see it invading. The roaring falls of that clear river gave way to flat black bends.

"Drew." The black river threatened to drown him and when the gasping breathing disappeared, a wind scattered the ribbons, the shreds, the debris, the dust.

Then the echo vanished and Drew pulled his trembling arms away from the still face and piled them under his head. He froze; the dust settled on the black river and that froze too.

"You are by far the best thing that ever happened to me. Just keep that in mind." Drew whispered, his head still buried in his arms, inches from Rick but thousands of miles away.

Spider cracks ruined the structural integrity of the river, the dust trapped in ice blocks that never thawed.

Finally the chill made him shiver and Drew retreated, but reluctant, didn't go far. The chair clattered loudly, startling him and he slid down the wall opposite the bed.

* * *

And hell had frozen over.

Topher was the one to walk into the room and carefully come to rest next to Drew.

Those huge eyes were hidden as Drew had curled in a tight ball, wedged in the right angle between the wall and the floor. The world didn't build room for that type of pain.

"Call it." That cold wind ripped across the barren landscape, relentlessly.

"3:08 am."

But that pain forced its way in anyway.


End file.
